Twin Cities, MN- As the Republican National Convention approaches, the staff of Twin Cities Indymedia is preparing for their website to be inundated with hits from protestors, sympathizers, bloggers, reporters, and cops seeking information on the St. Paul protests. In response, Indymedia has launched a 24-hour Dispatch hotline. The hotline is designed to allow protest participants to call in reports from the streets. A “LiveWire” has been set up on the site to feature these up-to-the-minute updates. The LiveWire can be viewed at http://tc.indymedia.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Twin Cities Indymedia / tc.indymedia.org

Contact: IMC Dispatch Line, 651-503-5661 August 31, 2008

Twin Cities Indymedia to Provide Live Updates from Protestors During Republican National Convention Hotline Launched for Up-to-the-Minute Coverage

Twin Cities, MN- As the Republican National Convention approaches, the staff of Twin Cities Indymedia is preparing for their website to be inundated with hits from protestors, sympathizers, bloggers, reporters, and cops seeking information on the St. Paul protests. In response, Indymedia has launched a 24-hour Dispatch hotline. The hotline is designed to allow protest participants to call in reports from the streets. A “LiveWire” has been set up on the site to feature these up-to-the-minute updates. The LiveWire can be viewed at http://tc.indymedia.org.

Twin Cities Indymedia is the local branch of a global independent media network founded by various independent and alternative media organizations and activists in 1999 for the purpose of providing grassroots coverage of the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle. During the anti-WTO protests, the center acted as a clearinghouse of information for journalists, and provided up-to-the-minute reports, photos, audio and video footage through its website.

The center also produced its own newspaper, as well as hundreds of audio segment transmitted over the web. The Indymedia.org site, which uses a democratic open-publishing system, logged more than 2 million hits, and was featured on America Online, Yahoo, CNN, BBC Online, and numerous other sites.

Through a decentralized and autonomous network, hundreds of media activists setup independent media centers in London, Canada, Mexico City, Prague, Belgium, France, and Italy over the next year. Indymedia has provided coverage of protest actions at all of the major anti-globalization mobilizations of the past decade.